Wed 11 Jul 2007
I’ve been wresting with how to add better transparency to my blog. I’ve considered publishing my Quicken financials but I’m not sure if that would improve anything. For example, MM over at PFBlog.org frequently publishes Money Financials and it’s interesting to see how his cash is allocated but I’m wondering if that really helps anyone.
If I published my other investments would it make any difference to anyone? If I published my salary would that help anyone? One of the reasons I don’t publish salary information is because it varies. I receive annual stock grants as part of my employment so how would I go about valuing them when the price of the stock fluctuates? If I received 3000 shares of XYZ stock and the price today is $50/share should I publish that I have $150,000 in stock? What if the stock drops to $10? Does this help anyone? What about the vesting periods? Should I state that only 50% is vested so I really have $75k in cash and $75k in unvested options?
This salary question is further complicated by bonus programs which vary my income. If the company meets goals, I might earn a 10k or 50k bonus. Which should I publish? Would this help anyone? What if the company doesn’t meet its goals?
When I look over MM’s financials at PFBlog.org it looks interesting but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really help me. If a person owns Bank of America stock to the tune of 1000 shares, how does that help me?
I’m interested in the investment strategy behind the numbers. The allocation, the aggressive/non-aggressive nature, risk aversion scenarios, etc. I guess I’m interested in knowing what works and what doesn’t. I know what has been working for me so far and I’d like to know what’s been working for others so far.
What I have found most interesting are the returns from Prosper that MM and Lazyman have been publishing. I think this is really useful information as it describes a strategy (loan sharking) and describes the returns.
Trisha over at Building an Empire talks about building a real estate empire. A lot of great info there too.
The Dividend Blog Guy does a great job too of describing his strategy and publishing the numbers behind it.
I’m not sure what else to add to this blog to show greater transparency so if anyone has any ideas, I’m open to suggestions.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
If complexity is really an issue, you could report your previous 12 months income. If you have Quicken, maybe there’s a way to do a rolling 12 month version. Yes it would still be spiky, but I think it would give a general idea.
I think you are right to ask the larger question of why we really need to know the general idea. The only reason I can think of is that it will satisfy curiousity. I’m not sure that’s really a legit reason. For the purposes of your advice, you make as clear as possible that it’s for 100K net income individuals, so other than that it’s probably not really all that important.
I think you do a great job giving us the numbers behind ETF covered calls. I’m not at the point where I feel I can invest in that area. I’m lacking knowledge and the investable income. However, there may be a day in the not to distant future that I’ll use it. Thus you are just like the rest of us that publish numbers – it’s just that you are in unique area.